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5. Actions to be taken by EANPC members
This Memorandum has been unable to keep the main related factors of productivity
development in separate, watertight compartments. Nor would such an approach,
even were it to have been possible, desirable: for productivity development is
holistic, driven by competition and facilitated by the factors enumerated; and
without productivity development, there can be no value creation and no new and
sustainable jobs.
It is the task of the EANPC members
to deliver the message of the Memorandum 2005 in their own countries.
They have to take into account that the main stakeholders have different
views on productivity. These differences can be explained from the effects
productivity can have on different levels of society. What is good on
the national level may be bad on the sectoral or individual level. Policy makers,
labour unions, employers’ organisations
and SMEs all see distinct benefits with regard to productivity growth.
The negative effects of productivity may be mitigated by policy makers, employers’ organisations
and labour unions by making the workforce more flexible and better educated.
The EANPC can play an important role in facilitating these institutions.
EANPC member organisations contribute, at different times and in different
ways through government initiatives, to the development of economic growth,
helping to raise income and increase economic and social resources which
can be invested for the general development of society.
As experts in the field
of productivity and economic development, member organisations can, each
in its own country, offer public institutions, stakeholder organisations
and enterprises support within the framework of a ‘high road’ to
economic policy and productivity policy which emphasises the quality
and innovation of the outputs and processes, rather than just cost-cutting
on the side of the inputs. This support consists of:
- Through the close
linkage between innovation and the development of productivity
and economic growth, EANPC member organisations play an important
role in the innovation process. In particular, they inform SMEs
of the opportunities and risks relating to product and process innovation
and help them in the design of innovation processes. They also contribute
to enhanced transfer of know-how between research and enterprises and to
defining the goals for the state’s
innovation and technology policy.
- EANPC member organisations contribute
both on the level of their national economies as well as that
of the individual enterprise to reducing competitive inequalities
through actions to empower small and medium-sized companies (SMEs).
Thus, they make their knowledge of technological progress, managerial concepts,
learning, etc. available to SMEs. As partners of state-supported
programmes for SMEs, they provide help for self-help. In this way they can
optimise the search and information behaviour of SMEs as a precondition for
corporate decision-making. Moreover, in various business areas they organise
and accompany co-operation between enterprises and in this way contribute
to SMEs’ economies of
scale.
- Furthermore the EANPC represents in this respect one important
network for transferring know-how and information to and among
enterprises, countries and international organisations. Different
countries have had different experiences with organisational processes
and their design at the enterprise and sectoral levels. It is important
to collect, exchange and evaluate these experiences for a variety of reasons:
to avoid making the same mistakes twice; to describe good practice examples;
to give advice on and inspiration to designing the processes; to make the
competition which enterprisesparticularly SMEsare
facing more transparent; and to contribute to ensuring that enterprises
do not become locked into work and enterprise structures which
cannot meet the current and emerging conditions of international competition.
- In
addition member organisations, through their consulting activities,
help to bring in innovative and flexible company structures which
contribute to the creation of additional employment opportunities;
they also foster new fields of employment; by relating further training
to company development, they enhance the continuing employability
of individuals; they support sectoral and vocational mobility; and they support
start-ups and the development of innovative products and services.
- On account of the tasks assigned to
them, EANPC member organisations serve as an effective link between
economic policy and labour market policy measures at the level
of the enterprise. Thus, through its members, the EANPC can contribute
to the implementation at the national level of the employment
policy goals of international organisations.
- Improved working
conditions, including safety and health at work and a healthy
workforce, are very important for productivity development. The EANPC together
with its members is striving, through information meetings and consulting,
to bring out the economic significanceat
both the macro and micro levelsof
working conditions and to develop measures for introducing more
approaches in this area in more companies and organisations.
This is not just beneficial to the workforce, but is also a contribution
to fair competition between enterprises and economies.
- Moreover it is an important task for the EANPC
and its member organisations is to show entrepreneurs, managers
and corporate stakeholders that workforce skills and qualifications
are an important element of productivity development and a prime
factor of competitiveness. They must bring out that enhancing skills is not
just a concern of basic and vocational training policy, but also an important
constituent of productivity policy and that it hence needs to be embedded
in an organisation conducive to change and supportive of learning.
All productivity improvement programmes fail if the skills required for their
implementation are not available.
- On the national level it is particularly important for EANPC
member organisations not only to become deeply involved in life-long
learning processes, especially in vocational further training,
but also to bring out the productivity aspects of skills’ learning and application which
go beyond the boundaries of the individual enterprise. A key element in this
respect is to strive for greater portability of qualifications and skills.
For the more company-specific are the skills, the less they will be adaptable
to the needs of other companies should the individual need or want to change
to another enterprise.
- Productivity measurement is an important tool to monitor productivity
development. However research institutes in the EU which measure
productivity use different standards and thus produce various
productivity figures. The present chaos in existing productivity
figures in the EU does not facilitate a sound policy on productivity
development.
The EANPC is the most suitable organisation to collect and present
unambiguous EU productivity figures.
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